The Robert Watson Literary Prize Poem WHERE YOU FELL

The snow held your shape like bedding,

the shadow of your hand over your head ruined

by the feet of the men who found and carried you.

 

I stayed in your house for a day, following your habits,

coatless to the shed and back. I finished the wood

you’d begun to split, feeling the heft of the axe

 

as you felt it. We are always becoming what

we lose. They will say they saw a fox whisper

into your ear. They will never come back.

 

I pawed the snow to form your hand again,

your sleeping profile. Then I pressed my face

to the mold of your cheek and I became you.